Video

There are a few types of videos here. The first are short docs on the project that will give you the larger picture. The second are videos shot by individual participants and include whitewashing and art production. The third are videos that individuals shot of NPA employees and police interactions on 10-25-09.

This is a timelapse shot of the materials setup for the second NYSAT project. A total of 13 units were deployed during this action, each included a 5 gallon bucket of paint, a luggage cart, paint rollers, extension poles, safety vests, and a clipboard with maps and a checklist to insure each location was taken care of properly. This was enough material to cover close to 20,000 square feet of illegal advertising in NYC, opening up nearly 120 blank spaces where the publicly created content could find a way into our shared public spaces.

This Video, created by Keith Haskel, Chronicles the first NYSAT project on 04-25-09. It is one of the more comprehensive videos and should give you a good idea of what we were up to. You can see more of Keith’s work [HERE]

In the first of these two videos you can see an NPA employee begin to prepare a location on Bowery for postering. The conversation between him and the Paper Tiger videographer is illuminating to say the least. In the second video, he appears to stop because of a phone call, at which point he packs up and heads off to another location. You can clearly see the materials in his truck and the license plate of his vehicle at the end. Not more than 2 hours earlier 3 individuals from the NYSAT project were arrested at this exact location. All of their cases have been dismissed as NPA failed to sign the deposition and the cases were sealed after the mandatory 90 days.

This video shows team one in consecutive stills whitewashing their entire run in Williamsburg. It gives you an idea of how many spots each team was asked to reclaim. From what I understand the entire run took about an hour and a half.

This video shows yet another NPA employee posting ad content over a recently whitewashed location at 18th street and 10th avenue. He is clearly upset about the fact that we are filming him but never asks us to stop. We recorded his license plate as well as him apparently calling the cops. Not 15 minutes later we were all on the corner of 19th street and 10th avenue discussing the issue with the NYPD. After a long conversation with arguments made by both parties, the police asked us to politely both go our separate ways, stating that this was a DOB issue and not something they were prepared to handle. Oddly the NYPD was willing to arrest 5 of our other participants at two other locations.

Paper Tiger Media is a group of amazing people and an institution that I hope continues for years to come. They put this video together after the first NYSAT project, but were out in mass on the more recent October 25th event, catching arrests, NPA action, and reactions to the entire affair. A special thank you to all of them.